The Stuff of Life
by prittyspeshul
Summary: For someone who had made such an impact on so many lives, she didn't leave much behind. [character death]


For someone who made such an impact on so many lives, she didn't have many material possessions.

Her parents went through the clothes. There weren't many, just a couple pairs of jeans in various colors, basic shirts, some dresses, some coats. With a tenuous smile, held together by good breeding, sheer force of will, and the comfort of a heavy, warm hand on her shoulder, her mother had handed the infamous red leather coat to him. "She'd want you to have it."

There was so much in those words, so much in her red, bloodshot eyes, but he didn't trust his voice not to betray him. He pulled the princess to him in a hug, the only way he knew to answer her incredible kindness. She had broken down, a muffled sob breaking into his lapel and threatening his hard-won control, but the good breeding won out and she pulled herself together with an "excuse me" and dashed out the door.

The prince had simply stood for a moment, eyes on the floor, before the pirate reached out and rested a hand on his shoulder. No words were needed between them, these two who had so clumsily yet wholeheartedly loved her; both had died on the end of a sword for her in different worlds, and in that shared sacrifice was a bond of respect. A weary hand pressed to his for one moment, then the prince too was gone.

He sat down and leaned back in the chair—her chair—and pressed the jacket to his face, hoping to catch a hint of her warmth or maybe a reason why, why, why, but it was just cold leather and offered him no such comfort.

Her son went through the papers. Just old photographs of them, from when she first entered his life, and some from New York, in the glorious year when he had her all to himself (except for the flying monkey), and his adoption paperwork. The lad had asked to keep the photos with a sullen teenager mutter and threw away the rest. He pretended not to see the way almost-grown fingers shook as they clutched the shiny prints, the tear stains that smudged the papers when they were returned to be buried in the trash.

A single picture—pirate and princess, both looking mildly confused and slightly uncomfortable, standing in front of the kitchen table hand in hand—was left on the desk. He understood the peace offering, the request for space with a hope of reconciliation, because like mother like son and that thought hurt too deeply so it was discarded.

Finally, her pirate went through the box. Her childhood memories, the deepest parts of her pain that she had allowed him to see once, and thinking back to how much vulnerability she had shown him that day made his heart ache, which he thought was better than feeling nothing, but he wouldn't know until he was able to breathe again. The blanket he would give to her mother, so she knew that even in the darkest parts of her daughter's life she had held on to the hope of the family that had left her with it. The trinkets he would give to her son, so he could reconcile his own helpless confusion and maelstrom of emotions with his mother's at her age.

For himself, he would keep the memories. The quiet moments. The kisses on cheeks, the dart in the wall because he couldn't believe the words she had uttered, the embraces in forests and the soft whispered "be patient," the madcap rescue and desperate attempt to save her, the man she had taught him he could be.

He found himself on the floor of the sheriff's station, burying his face in her coat and screaming, screaming until his throat was hoarse and his knuckles ran with blood from pounding into the floor, over and over again until his voice gave out and it became quiet, gasping sobs of her name.

He had suffered this before, watched another die before his very eyes, but that pain was old, decades old, centuries old, and that woman was beautiful and wonderful and had also left a young son bereft of parentage, but that woman was not his "Emma," he cries, and wonders if this is his punishment, and buries his face harder into the jacket.


End file.
